extreme weather

The global rise in extreme weather is likely to bring along more fatal heart attacks, new research this week suggests. The study found that exposure to heat waves and cold snaps was associated with higher odds of heart attack deaths. This associated risk was even greater on extreme heat days that also featured high levels of certain air pollutants.California’s Snowpack Gets a Much Needed Boost | Extreme EarthThe research was led by scientists at the Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China. The team analyzed recent data…

Toyota Hilux Officially Joins the Indian Army Fleet. (Photo: Toyota)Indian Army receives first-ever fleet of iconic Toyota Hilux vehicles, passing rigorous tests with flying colors.In a groundbreaking achievement, Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) has delivered a fleet of robust Toyota Hilux vehicles to the Indian Army, marking a historic moment as the iconic off-roader makes its grand debut on Indian soil.The Northern Command of the Indian Army subjected the Hilux to a rigorous two-month evaluation, and it emerged…

Nightmare summer travel is upon us as vacation season coincides with high temperatures and severe weather capable of disrupting flights. By Wednesday of this week, FlightAware, a site that follows air traffic around the world, had tallied some 30,000 delays and between 900 and 1,400 cancellations per day. In the US, more severe weather is expected in the southwest, as scorching temperatures are forecast to reach above 115 degrees Fahrenheit in some areas, and thunderstorms are forecast for the northeast.The airline…

What explains the series of extreme events? Attributing any single weather event to climate change is a complicated business. Part of the difficulty reflects the intricate mechanisms of Earth’s climate, where persistent warming is the ominous background hum against which numerous other patterns play out. “Every event is a combination of climate change and climate variability," says Caroline Wainwright, a climate scientist at Imperial College London. Weather versus climateOne of the most…

Smoke from wildfires in Canada has engulfed the East Coast, cloaking cities in a hazy smog and putting some 100 million people under air quality alerts. More than 400 fires are burning in British Columbia, Alberta, Quebec, and Ontario, and half are uncontrolled. New York City became home to the worst air quality in the world. Philadelphia has also issued a code red alert, advising people to stay indoors, and the plumes may continue inundating the region for several more days to come, with the smoke stretching through…

Not all power outages in the U.S. are created the same. Populations that are already socially vulnerable are being exposed in some areas to high levels of threatening blackouts—while climate change is making long power outages much more likely, according to new research published in Nature Communications.Lower Drought Conditions In California | Extreme EarthA power outage that lasts just a few minutes can be an inconvenience, but one that goes on for hours can bedeadly. People who rely on medical equipment like…

This story originally appeared on Grist and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration.A year ago, extreme heat waves in India killed dozens of people, slashed crop yields by as much as one-third in some areas, and set a landfill ablaze in Delhi, casting toxic smoke over the surrounding neighborhoods. Temperatures soared 15 degrees Fahrenheit above normal, hitting 115 degrees in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh and sparking more than 300 wildfires across the country. Even as power plants burned more coal to provide the…

The US is experiencing devastation from a flurry of tornadoes. At least five people died Wednesday when a tornado tore through southeastern Missouri. It followed six in New Jersey and one in Delaware that killed a person and became the state’s widest on record. Batches of tornadoes killed more than 30 people in the South and Midwest over the weekend. And January saw 168 preliminary tornado reports, nearly five times that month’s average between 1990 and 2010. It’s been a busy and deadly start to tornado season, and the…

It’s no secret: the world is heating up. Inevitably, people are starting to take notice. More people are searching for information on extreme heat than ever before, according to Google—and the company is hoping to make those search results clearer.The U.S. In For A Dry Winter | Extreme EarthWith a new search feature, Google says it wants to help its users stay cool (and safe) during increasingly common and intense heat waves. The tech giant is adding extreme heat alerts to its search results, as announced in a Wednesday…

This story originally appeared on Grist and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration.California is no stranger to big swings between wet and dry weather. The “atmospheric river” storms that have battered the state this winter are part of a system that has long interrupted periods of drought with huge bursts of rain—indeed, they provide somewhere between 30 and 50 percent of all precipitation on the West Coast. The parade of storms that has struck California in recent months has dropped more than 30 trillion gallons of…